Great birthday week

Dear Familia e Amigos,

Ola! First of all thank you to everyone who wished me happy birthday! It was a great day! We had divisons that day so i was with one of our sister training leaders Sister Ellsworth! It was great and i learned a lot from her. And she is great at inventing foods so she made brownies for us! Also the other sisters made me a cake. My favorite cake in cabo verde... Chocolate and orange! Hmm hmm good! I have a picture but yet again the computer to send pics is not exactly working so i cant send it. :( hopefully next week! But yes it was very good! Cant complain :) Only that i feel a lot older now. It is quite sad.

So this week! Divisions was amazing. I learned a lot from our sister training leaders. So yes divisions was amazing! Sister Ellsworth taught me a lot. Sometimes i get a little discouraged because they are so amazing, and then there is me. But i guess i have to remember this is why they are the leaders. Maybe one day i can be a great missionary like they are. Study and prayer! This week we also had a zone meeting in sao vicente! It was a great zone meeting! We talked about faith. So last week we got a letter from president and he expressed how he felt about the month of february. We didnt reach our goal for baptisms... we werenºt even really close actually. So he said he really prayed and thought about it. And he said that he feels as if we are being very obedient. we are one of the most obedient group of this mission. but he said we lack desire and faith! That took us a little by surprise. Me at least. So this past week was a lot of self evaluating on my faith and desires. i have realized a lot of things about myself that i didnt see before. It is amazing how the Lord works.

But this week i realized that i need to increase my faith and one way for me to do that is to trust in the Lord more. I have been studying in Alma about the boss missionaries in those chapters. Ammon, Alma, Amuleque, Aaron... so on. And i just finished one of the stories about how the people of anti-nefi-lehis had buried their weapons of war but the laminites were coming to war against them. They decided they would rather die righteous than to take up arms. Wow the faith! They knew the Lord would keep his promises unto them as they kept their covenants. So as the laminites were coming upon them with their weapons they prayed. Well there were a few that were killed... but then eventually the laminites realized that they were not going to fight back and their hearts were softened. They stopped warring against them. And many of them were converted to the lord and repented of their sins. I love the end of this chapter as it says the lord works by his own means to bring about his purposes... something a long those lines. It is Alma chapter 24:27... But wow! This hit me. This is the Work of the Lord we are doing here in Cabo verde. The work of the lord we are doing throughout the world. It is His work. And he will work by his means to bring about this great work! He has given me the great opportunity to be a representitive of him and to work in this part of the world. But i need to Trust in him fully and realize he is doing his work. I trust in myself too much sometimes. And then i get discouraged or upset because i cant do all i want to do on my own. But there is good news. I am not alone. i am never alone, i never was, and never will be! This is the work of the lord and i have seen his hand in this work. it is amazing the transformation in peoples lives. Always a miracle. God is a god of miracles! :) So to increase my faith i need to change who i am trusting in. And that is in the Lord! I know he is hastening his work.

I love the scriptures so much and the great stories they have! I have read the book of mormon many times but just now... as i read in portuguese, am i starting to get the story and get excited. I am even at the point where i am not sure what happens next and i get excited to read every morning... maybe that is because it is in portuguese and it feels different! But also one thing that has helped is having a blank copy! So i dont see my notes ahead of time and i can make new notes and get new revelation. I think that would be a great idea if some of you want to read the book of mormon again! Get a new copy and start reading. It is very exciting :)

I am so grateful for this work! We had some great lessons this week. We started talking to a family. They are not married, but the wife is super super interested. The husband has cheio (a lot) of work but we are still going to pray that everytime we meet he is there! And their kids are always super excited too! I love families. 

Love you all!

Sister Johnson